The reason why the US press stated that there is no need for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft

“Since the latest American reusable spacecraft Crew Dragon has successfully demonstrated its capabilities, NASA no longer needs to buy seats on the Soyuz from Russia at increasingly inflated prices,” the journalist wrote.

Russian spacecraft. Illustration photo

The journalist commented like that on the news posted on the media.Russian mediain connection with the 2019 Roscosmos report that NASA will not buy seats on the Soyuz MS after 2020. Subsequently, the state corporation announced that the composition of the Soyuz MS crews in 2021 will be international, but did not specify which countries, in particular, about American astronauts, or about Europeans and Japanese who ordered seats from Roscosmos through NASA.

In June, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation's quarterly report said that space flights on the Soyuz MS spacecraft for foreign partners will become cheaper due to competition with American spacecraft.

On May 30, a Falcon 9 heavy-lift rocket launched the Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying American astronauts to the ISS. The last time the United States independently launched humans into low Earth orbit was on July 8, 2011, when the reusable manned Space Shuttle Atlantis took off. Since then, the United States has used Russian Soyuz spacecraft to launch humans to the ISS.

According to a report from NASA's Office of Inspector General released in November 2019, from 2006 to 2019, the cost of a Soyuz seat for the United States increased from $21.3 million to $86 million, while the average price of a seat on the Crew Dragon was $55 million.

Also that month, US Vice President Michael Pence, speaking at the Joseph Ames Research Center (California), said that Washington "will not need to fly on Russian spacecraft" after "American astronauts will fly into space fromUS territoryby American spacecraft".

PV